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    Make (Whose?) Rome Great Again

    Happy Fourth of July! Hope you get to savor some apple pie,  jump in some water, and see some fireworks. I just returned from teaching an on-site course that traveled through Rome, so I’m taking the week off. But I met the most interesting Christian saint, and I invited him to guest post on our special American holiday. He chose to share this letter he received from the emperor:  Rome, AD 249 – Decius to Maximus, grace to you.              Last week over a thousand of us light-skinned citizens from across the empire who fly the Roman flag in our houses of worship gathered in Rome. We decked ourselves out in…

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    #SCOTUSDecision #ChurchFreakOut

    And a decree went out from SCOTUS on June 26, 2015, that couples of the same sex may receive marriage licenses that every state in the USA must recognize as legal. And the church in America freaked out.  Yes, perhaps the earth shifted a bit under our feet. But Chicken Little was still wrong about the sky. The true ruler of the world is still on the throne. This decision did not even usher in the last days, as one friend’s hashtag suggested. Indeed, we were already in the last days. I refer readers to 2 Timothy 3:3ff, which describes people in those days as follows: lovers of themselves, lovers…